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<p>And no one has proposed forcing them. The idea that churches can be required to marry gay couples is one of the canards which opponents have used to keep their followers riled up. Not saying you believe the canard, but many do.</p>
<p>Exactly, LasMa.</p>
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There is a vast difference between saying that the government is not in favor of forcing religious organizations to perform marriages against their own guidelines and saying that no one in the gay marriage community supports that. I have worked with the marriage equality community for decades. It’s not a canard. There are whackjobs and extremists in every community.</p>
<p>It is absolutely no skin off your nose to respectfully understand that some people may have concerns but they are unfounded and that you, personally, would never support such a thing. You don’t have to be insulting. Respect goes both ways. I am a conservative supporter of gay marriage. I feel victorious and gleeful. I also believe it is important to be gracious in victory, as in all things.</p>
<p>zoos, I apologize if you didn’t like my tone. I understand that people have legitimate concerns which may be unfounded, and I have no problem with that. </p>
<p>What I have a problem with is the opinion leaders who create and promote these unfounded concerns – including the notion that churches would be forced to marry gays --KNOWING that they are false but recognizing that they are powerful political tools. I’d probably better not post links, but a google search for “churches forced to marry gays” turned up numerous examples of prominent opponents of gay marriage who made misleading statements about this issue.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I have no doubt that there are some extremists out there who do not appreciate the basic principle of separation of church and state who would like to try to force churches to recognize same-sex marriage. </p>
<p>This is one of the reasons why I think that strict separation is good for all concerned: both religious people and non-religious people. It protects everyone.</p>
<p>I think that we will see some religiously-affiliated organizations having to think more carefully about their policies when renting venues, for example. This is going to be a gray area in some cases. I recall a case of this sort in New Jersey within the last few years. I don’t recall the resolution.</p>
<p>“This thread has raised the interesting question of which will last longer: prejudice against gays, or prejudice against New Jersey.”</p>
<p>Ah Hunt, at least gays are <em>trying</em> to improve their lot. (Though I have to give NJ credit for building out it’s highway system, which makes it easier to depart the state quickly).</p>
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<p>Exactly. Which is very good for me since I can never quite decide which side of that particular divide I fall on.</p>
<p>I listened to a radio interview with the head of the NJ statewide gay advocacy organization. Firstly, he gave a compelling argument about the ‘civil union’ versus ‘marriage’ debate, saying if we just reserved “marriage” for religious ceremonies like many European nations do, it would clear up much of the political agita in America. As others have said, the feds, nor really any government, has any business telling who and who is not in your family.</p>
<p>Secondly, the gentleman analyzed Gov. Chris Christie’s comments and opined that stubborn-as-a-bull Christie will not support converting NJ civil unions into marriage, because he is of the mistaken belief that NJ civil unions convey all the rights of marriage to a couple, despite the Supreme Court court ruling. Christie is outrageously disingenuous because it’s been proven years ago that legally the two are not the same vis-a-vis rights and benefits in NJ, not even to mention federal benefits.</p>
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<p>But in so defining “marriage,” you’re hijacking a term that in our language and in our legal and social history has always had a much broader definition. Anthropologists tell us that virtually all societies and cultures from pre-historic times to the present have had social institutions that are recognizable as forms of marriage–some monogamous, some polygamous, some accorded religious significance, some not. The word “marriage” itself comes from the Old French “marier” (to marry), which in turn is derived from the Latin “maritare” (to provide with a husband or wife). In ancient Greece, neither a civil ceremony nor a religious one was required to effect a valid marriage; all that was required was mutual consent, but once entered into, the marriage carried with it certain social, economic, and legal implications, e.g., rights to inherit a spouse’s property, responsibility for children of the marriage, etc. Ancient Rome recognized several kinds of marriage, the differences going mostly to different sorts of inheritance arrangements (e.g., whether the married woman retained or gave up inheritance rights in her family of origin). None of this had anything to do with religion. And that’s where our word “marriage” comes from. </p>
<p>Through the Middle Ages and into early Modern times, marriage was mostly about creating contractual alliances between families; the bride and groom typically had little say in the matter, and neither the church nor the state much cared, as these were seen as purely private arrangements (except to the extent the principals were royalty or nobility whose every move could have political significance). It wasn’t until about the 1400s or 1500s that the Church got involved, but even then its role was at first largely limited to registering marriages (which were then still performed in civil ceremonies), and setting increasingly strict rules on divorce and annulment. During the Reformation, Martin Luther thought even that was too much church involvement; he described marriage as “a worldly thing,” and early Lutheran churches played no role in it, with all responsibilities for marriage ceremonies, recording, divorce, and annulment falling to the state in Lutheran-controlled areas. It was only with the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent in 1563 that the Catholic Church decided that all valid marriages required a ceremony officiated by a priest. John Calvin and his followers imported this practice back into Protestantism by requiring dual recognition, consisting of state registration and church consecration. The Anglican Church did not require priestly involvement until 1753, when an Act of Parliament was enacted requiring a ceremony officiated by an Anglican priest in an Anglican church (but Quakers and Jews were exempt and left free to follow their own practices). That didn’t last long, however; by 1836, a new Marriage Act provided for civil marriage as a legal alternative to church marriage.</p>
<p>As is plainly seen, marriage was a social and legal institution long before it was a religious one. You are, of course, free to use your own idiosyncratic definition of “marriage” as an exclusively religiously-based concept involving a religious covenant, but such idiosyncratic uses of common terms can only serve to confuse the debate, because then you and the rest of the English-speaking world are quite literally no longer speaking the same language.</p>
<p>To the poster who has referred to the concept of “illegitimacy” – I have news for you. The US Supreme court held a long time ago that it is a denial of equal protection for state laws to discriminate or distinguish between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” children. essentially abolished that concept in the 1960’s:</p>
<p>Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68 (1968) -
Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U.S. 762, (1977)</p>
<p>So from a legal standpoint, that argument won’t fly. Same problem as the court found in the DOMA case: Denial of equal protection. To assert a concern about whether a child is “legitimate” as a basis for denying marriage equality is to bootstrap one unconstitutional denial of equal protection on another. </p>
<p>I’d also note that many gay couples are raising children who were born in wedlock in any case – such as gay men and women who were previously married to an opposite gender spouse and subsequently widowed or divorced.</p>
<p>My viewpoints are somewhat traditional and I consider a kid born out wedlock illegitimate. Do I think the kid deserves lesser rights? No. It is what it is. A legitmate child is one who is born to two parents who are married.</p>
<p>“It is what it is…”</p>
<p>And what exactly IS it? Something less? Less than legitimate?</p>
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<p>And you’re welcome to that belief, however benighted others of us may think it. In the eyes of the law, all children are equally legitimate. </p>
<p>But regardless, the concept of “legitimate” as opposed to “illegitimate” children is now legally irrelevant, as calmom points out, and cannot be the basis for a legally “legitimate” argument about what counts as a legally valid marriage.</p>
<p>Niquii: two questions:
- What exactly do you do with that information? If you find out that someone is “illegitimate” do you treat them differently? Think of them differently? I guess I really just don’t understand what one DOES with information like that.
- How do you find out if someone is legitimate or not? I don’t really feel like this is something that comes up in coversation.</p>
<p>While I, by most definitions, was a legitimate child (though not by a definition above lol), my sister was not. Her parents were not married when she was born. I asked her about this and not once, in 27 years, has it come up that she was an “illegitimate” child. (I had to explain what the term meant to her first…)</p>
<p>Anyway- I for one am glad that marriage is not about producing children (IMO) as I will likely never have biological children. Actually, as a woman, an atheist, and someone who is mixed-race, I am VERY glad that the “definition of marriage” has evolved quite a bit over the last 100 or so years.</p>
<p>While we’re redefining marriage, I propose we also redefine “illegitimate” as an archaic term no longer used in polite company.</p>
<p>I guess it beats another word, but not by much.</p>
<p>“Illegitimate” may no longer be polite but it is not archaic. Wills routinely refer to inheritances left only to ‘legitimate’ children or children born from a marriage.</p>
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I think it should be asked more like: And what exactly is IT?
It is the definition of a legitmate child. That us what I referring to. If someone asks me what a legitimate child is I will simply say a child born in wedlock. That’s what my (and many others) definition is.</p>
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No, my post was not in response to legitimacy in relation to legal system. </p>
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What would someone do with that information?</p>
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No, I do not treat them differently. Why would I? </p>
<p>I do not see the world in legitimate and illegitimate children. I don’t care. I did say above that I don’t think illegitimate children deserve lesser rights. </p>
<p>I guess I misunderstood what posters were talking about. :)</p>
<p>I thought someone said that all children are legitimate, legally and socially (perhaps), and that’s what my post was based on.</p>
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Who would tell someone they have an illegitimate child? Who web thinks in terms like that??</p>
<p>Hunt, I was wiki-ing this issue and found out that the term “natural child” is commonly used in Britain in polite company. </p>
<p>I propose calling all children (regardless of how they came in to this world), you know, “children”… but I just thought it was interesting lol.</p>
<p>Honestly, I consider it just plain rude to consider someone “illegitimate”. It’s just a nasty label to attach to someone, regardless of what it legally means.</p>
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<p>That’s pretty much the part that the US Supreme Court rejected 30+ years ago. They ruled that a state could not properly draw a distinction between the inheritance rights of legitimate vs. illegitimate children. </p>
<p>That doesn’t prevent an individual from writing their will to leave their money to whomever they choose, but I don’t think that any modern lawyer should be drafting wills that define inheritance rights by the concept of “legitimacy”. Rather, it would be make more sense to specify beneficiaries or those who are excluded from inheritance by name or more detailed descriptions of the relationship.</p>